Articles Posted inWrongful Termination

No one wants to think about being wrongfully terminated from their job as a result of doing something that would otherwise be a joyous thing, such as having a baby Unfortunately, though, it does occur. When it happens, the law gives those harmed workers certain legal options. And, sometimes, depending on the facts of the case, the options available to the harmed worker may be even more extensive than one might think when it comes to the damages available. To make sure your wrongful termination case yields everything it should for you, have a knowledgeable Oakland employment attorney on your side.

K.L., a teacher whose case was reported by NBC Los Angeles, was an employee who found herself in that position. K.L., a science teacher at a Catholic school in South Los Angeles, was seven months pregnant but was not married in the summer of 2012. The parish pastor, who oversaw the school, allegedly told the teacher that the teacher’s pregnancy outside of wedlock would “morally corrupt” the impressionable teenage students at the school, according to NBC Los Angeles. The pastor also allegedly referred to the teacher’s unborn child as “it,” even after the baby’s gender had been openly revealed.

The teacher complained to the school principal but, allegedly, was merely told to “pray,” with no other action being taken. Following the end of the 2012-13 school year, the school did not renew K.L.’s contract for the 2013-14 academic year. The school claimed that it decided not to renew K.L.’s contract due to performance problems she had in the classroom; specifically, a recurring problem with tardiness and several instances of taking phone calls during class.

California law provides various forms of protections for workers here. One area where those protections comes into play is retaliation against a worker for exercising her legal rights. There are many acts that a worker may do and the employer cannot punish the worker for it or, if they do, they are in violation of the law. One of these rights is availing yourself to the legal system to challenge your employer’s violation of employment laws, such as the Fair Employment and Housing Act. If you believe you’ve been wrongfully terminated from your job in retaliation for exercising your rights, you should contact an experienced Oakland employment attorney about your situation.

A.Q. was a worker in a similar and unfortunate situation. She was an employee who worked at an Orange County restaurant and who sued after the employer allegedly failed to pay overtime wages in accordance with federal “wage and hour” laws, including the Fair Labor Standards Act. A.Q. won that lawsuit.

Along the way, though, the employer fired A.Q. This allowed the employee to pursue an additional claim against the employer–wrongful termination. The law forbids employers from firing employees in retaliation for exercising their constitutional right to pursue civil litigation in court. This kind of termination is illegal if the employee has proof that the exercise of a constitutional right (such as filing a FLSA lawsuit) triggered the firing, unless the employer can persuade the court that there was a different, valid and independent reason that was the actual basis for the termination.

Sometimes, when a party to a case wrongfully destroys an important piece of evidence, the other side may be entitled to seek, and obtain, a penalty from the party who caused the destruction. The remedy to which you may be entitled for the “spoliation” of evidence can vary depending on the facts. If the destruction of the evidence was due to negligence, the penalties would be less severe than if the destruction was intentional. In some cases, you may be able to obtain money sanctions, or you may be able to persuade the trial judge to give the jury a specific instruction that says that they, the jury, may make in their deliberations certain negative factual inferences against the party who destroyed the evidence. This might include such things as making an inference that the destroyed evidence was relevant and was harmful to the destroying side’s case.

When it comes to demanding evidence, discovering that evidence has been destroyed and seeking remedies for improperly destroyed evidence, there may be many procedural options available to you. The key is having a detailed understanding of the rules and the law. That means having a knowledgeable Oakland employment attorney on your side.

The Fresno Bee reported on the wrongful termination case of a restaurant manager in Fresno, which was an example of this type of scenario. J.O. was the general manager of a restaurant chain’s location near Fresno State University. The manager had been with the employer for more than a decade, receiving “outstanding performance reviews” along the way. In 2014 and 2015, things allegedly changed, however. The manager developed carpal tunnel syndrome in her wrist and filed a claim for workers’ compensation benefits based upon the workplace injury to her wrist. After that, the employer’s upper management allegedly hatched a plot to retaliate against the manager for filing the workers’ comp claim, according to the report.

For many people, applying for a job is a relatively stressful process, and sometimes starting a new job can be, too. Imagine in the midst of these stresses being asked to sign a document written in a language you don’t read or speak. For some Spanish-speaking workers in California, that is what happens to them when they seek or start a new job. If you sign an agreement to arbitrate your employment disputes as part of the application or “new hire” processes that is written in a language you don’t understand, you may not be able to assert that that language barrier created a lack of mutual assent and therefore a lack of a valid contract. You may, however, have other avenues to assert that the foreign-language arbitration agreement you signed is not enforceable. If you find yourself in this type of scenario in your discrimination or wrongful termination lawsuit, you should be sure you have skilled California employment counsel representing you in your case.

The above general scenario is essentially what happened in M.M.’s case. M.M. had worked at a nursing home as a certified nursing assistant for five years when she filed a complaint against her employer. Among other things, the CNA alleged that her employer had engaged in disability discrimination and constructive wrongful termination. In response, the employer sought to take the dispute out of the courts and move it into an arbitration hearing. The employer argued that it was entitled to arbitration because it and the CNA had signed an agreement, as part of her employment application, agreeing to arbitrate all disputes that arose in relation to M.M.’s employment. M.M. also signed two subsequent documents in which she agreed to be bound by the employer’s “Alternative Dispute Resolution Policy,” which included arbitrating all employment disputes.

The CNA’s argument was that the agreement was not valid. Specifically, she asserted that she read and spoke Spanish, did not understand spoken or written English, and never received a copy of any of the arbitration agreement documents in Spanish. Because she allegedly never understood any of the arbitration agreement documents she signed, she argued that there was no “meeting of the minds” that is necessary for a valid and enforceable contract. She also argued that enforcing the agreement was unconscionable because the entity seeking to enforce the agreement did not sign the document. (The entity took over control of the operations at the facility where M.M. worked three years after she started in 2011).